Shake your tambourine

Always interesting around here.  Some big wind and waves have washed more (and more) Sargassum to shore and sand away from shore.

Big wave breaking over the dock in the early morning.  You can also see a little Sargassum in the water at the right edge of the photo.  When the day starts like this, there is usually more to come.  :-(

Even though the waves were high at the shore, just a little farther out it tends to be flatter.  A big yacht, I think from one of the big hotels in Placencia, was anchored that morning while their guests took a guided tour up the Monkey River.

Safe anchor about 1/3 mile off our beach.  This is the best spot around for big boats to anchor without damaging the coral.

Click below on JJ Cale, one of the best song writers ever, to hear him and Eric Clapton play "After Midnight" as the musical accompaniment to the rest of this exhibition.

This lovely green headed tree snake (Leptophis mexicanus) was letting it all hang out on the bracket holding our satellite dish.  It apparently likes to eat small lizards.

Just look at that bright green head and that long skinny body.

A black racing strip along the side.

Lovely large eyes.

It really posed for the camera.

The black racing stripe runs the full length of the snake, separating its paler belly from the brown back.

I do believe that this large green iguana would be too much for the green-headed tree snake to handle.  For weeks in late March and early April, we watched this big girl walk at least once a day from north to south along our beach.  She would sometimes climb into palm trees or noni bushes for some sun.  These iguanas, which are quite common, average more than 5 ft in length when mature!  Causing talk and suspicion, she probably laid her eggs on our south lot where quite a few nest sites are located.  In a few more weeks we should see dozens of little baby green iguanas running around.  Talk about shaking your tambourine!"

Female green iguana, stopping for a breather in front of our cabana.  Her foot prints are each about 4 or 5 inches long.

This little basilisk lizard is more the size that the green-headed tree snake would eat.  Can you see him?  No?  He sure hopes the snake won't either!

He blends in very well.

Zooming in a little closer you can see this young fellow still needs to grow up and find out what it is all about.  He will get to be about 2 feet or so long.

Those big back feet help propel it over the surface of water when startled, hence its colloquial name of Jesus Christ lizard.

Another fun group of lizards to see (and hear!) are the geckos, which are nocturnal.  I saw these 2 on the back veranda, hanging around after midnight. Well, not quite that late, but certainly after dark.  They make chirping sounds and for years I thought I was hearing birds during the night; turns out it was geckos all along.

Letting it all hang out on the underside of the pergola on the back veranda.

It has its eyes on the hummingbird feeder.

While I was talking the photo above, I saw a quick movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see something on the other side of the hummingbird feeder.

"You distract her while I run to the feeder!"

"uh-oh. busted."

"May as well chugalug and shout."

Uhmmmm.  Tastes like peaches and cream.

Now that I found out what that chirping "is all about", I finally understand why these geckos are so plump! 

A little excitment

We have been having some severe weather for the past few days here in the upper Midwest of the US. A couple of evenings ago, we were under a tornado warning in Rochester for quite a few hours. And 35 miles to the south of us a tornado struck the town Austin (famous for being the home of Spam canned meats!). It did considerable damage, but fortunately there was not loss of life. Here are some photos of the damage that were in the newspaper.


The other excitement was the Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton concert that Dennis and I went to in St. Paul last night. That was a fantastic experience. They played together for the entire concert except for a “solo” that each did. Steve’s voice is still super and their guitar skills remain a site to behold and a sound to savor. Our seats were in the stratosphere; we were in the absolute highest row, right up there with the hockey banners. Here are a couple of photos I took with my cell phone that give you an idea of how high we were. The good thing for us was that they had 2 massive rear projection screens so we could actually see what was happening. These and a couple of other cell phone photos can be seen on my Picasa album page: http://picasaweb.google.com/lulalaney/WinwoodClaptonInConcert#